THE GAMER'S FOOTPRINTRoleplaying games are usually designed such that they make it possible for us, as players, to assume a new role in a new setting and pretend to be a character different from ourselves. By vicariously living another life for a short period of time, the player may enjoy the great hobby of roleplaying games. And, some would argue, as an art form they could enjoy it even more if they did it "properly." Now I won't debate the inherent problems of claiming subjective desires as intrinsic fun for all, or even claim only I truly understand what is the proper way to roleplay, but one would think that in a roleplaying game, a roleplaying approach might be in order. To that end, I will express a concern of roleplayers here - though I admit others may not give a rat's tail about this issue. Now in the roleplaying ideal, the characters live inside a game reality and make decisions based upon what the character perceives or knows or thinks they know. They do not make such decisions based upon what the player knows when there is no reason to believe character and player share the same knowledge. The player may know many things the character doesn't. Specifically, advanced scientific and technological knowledge, amongst other things, is a good example. Or more to the point, the fact they are part of a game. And conversely, the character knows things his player doesn't. Specifically, fighting skills, magic skills, or a myriad of other game world skills and knowledge. Some information they hold in common; some they do not. Keeping these two different knowledge banks separate is part of the roleplaying ideal. A more in-depth treatment on this subject may be found by following the link below. In Character And Out Of Character Knowledge (What Do Our PCs Really Know Anyway?) The GM (Game Master) or DM (Dungeon Master) helps create the majority of the game's reality. Hopefully the idea is that game reality approximates normal reality except where the players, the GM, or even the particular game system have decided otherwise. This makes it possible to do a reasonable job at playing our characters. For example, we may agree we live on a different planet, we are like the Norse culture, we are in a medieval setting, your character is from a fishing village, magic really works, dragons exist and fly, etc. But unless the rules make specific mention otherwise, it is assumed game reality approximates normal universal reality so we, as players, can use our real experiences - or the real experiences of others in the real world - to help supplement our character's experiences. In the following example, we use what we, the players, know about rivers. This would be very hard if rivers acted contrary here to our normal experiences, so unless this was desired and intended for a particular game, we will assume rivers act "normally". "Jonalut, your fighter, clad in heavy chainmail, comes to a swiftly flowing river. He needs to cross if he wishes to get to Alodar," the GM informs the player. How will he do it? What will he do? What does he know? What's in Alodar that he wants so badly anyway? All good questions, I'll grant you. "How cold is the river?" his player asks the GM. Perhaps he is concerned about hypothermia. Does Jonalut know about hypothermia, or does he just hate getting cold and wet? "How deep is this river?" his player asks the GM, thinking this is important to find out as well. Does he know? Maybe he grew up there and played along the banks as a child and would know. Maybe he's never been there before. Maybe he has a map indicating this. Can he read maps anyway? Maybe he'll toss in some rocks to help see how deep it is. Are there any rocks handy? Perhaps he'll wade in. How about that long branch lying there? Couldn't he use it to test the waters? Duh! What you have read above might be typical thoughts, questions, descriptions, and concerns of a small portion of a roleplaying session. Under the roleplaying ideal, the player should have Jonalut do things that make sense, given what the fighter knows or can figure out about the scene, using the materials at hand to glean any pertinent information if necessary. But not everything the player knows is assumed also to be part of the fighter's knowledge. Hypothermia is real, and its laws, rules, properties - call them what you may - are in force, reality being what it is. But would his ignorant, uneducated fighter know he has only four minutes to cross before hypothermia sets in, assuming this river is that cold? So, in such a case the player must have his character make decisions based upon just the character's knowledge, and NOT upon the player's knowledge. But wait. Does this mean Jonalut doesn't mind getting cold or wet or can't know people can die from exposure? No. He probably just wouldn't know he has ONLY four minutes before hypothermia sets in while immersed in waters that cold. Though Jonalut's player may be big on watching nature documentaries on TV and knows this about hypothermia, Jonalut probably doesn't have as firm a grasp on such matters. But even this is the GM's call. Maybe Jonalut has vast experience on such matters, having grown up in an arctic-like region or something. It's even possible Jonalut knows more about hypothermia than his player does, in which case the GM may have to supplement the payer's knowledge on the matter so he may play Jonalut more realistically. In any event, the player and GM can discuss it and decide what makes sense for the character to know. Then they may proceed from there. Now here is an example of bad roleplaying. "I'll cross the river," he says, without giving it much thought. "What? In heavy chainmail? In water that cold?" asks the GM. "Sure; it's not like you'll kill me before I get to Alodar and tonight's story," he replies. "Arrgggghhhhh!" explains the GM >:( Clearly, Jonalut's player was not trying to play that role very well - I hope - and was using OOC (Out Of Character) information. This is a no-no in roleplaying games, but it happens all too often; particularly with game rules or the very knowledge this is a game, which is something your character should NOT know, even if you do. Most game rules are designed so the players and the GM may have common agreement as to how things are to be decided when there is a disagreement. Without them, arbitrary rulings from the GM may seem unfair or biased - even if they aren't, they might seem that way. If the decisions come from a book or set of rules, however, they seem less arbitrary - even if they were arbitrarily placed within the rules by the authors. Also, when dice are involved, random events help determine things, and this seems less arbitrary or biased. Naturally, you search for a good game system that doesn't offend your sensibilities too badly, but that's another story. Some game rules, however, are not designed to help us approximate reality. Some rules are placed in the game system to do other things. One reason in particular is for ease of play, and when that happens we often accept it or we don't. We may change or alter it more to our liking, but usually we accept it as part of the game system since it was designed for ease of play in that regard. But one of the biggest problems comes from rules not made for ease of play, but from the set of all rules that are designed to maintain GAME BALANCE. "WTF is game balance?" you ask. Simply put, game balance strives to prevent players from abusing the rules to such an extent that their characters becomes exceedingly powerful in comparison to other player's characters, or other non-player-characters. Or maybe not even more powerful, but the star attraction and the indispensable character, like they are the hero but all the other player characters are merely supporting roles. Or the rules may prevent players from moving in directions the GM simply doesn't wish, or prevent them from doing things the GM doesn't want them to do. To prevent such things and allay these concerns, it is important many of the player's choices during character generation should be equally attractive. Otherwise each player may gravitate toward the same set of choices and play virtually identical characters - and that's not very fun. For example, in By trying to achieve an even playing field, a sense of fair play is maintained, and this is often too important in our games to do without. So even if actual reality shows us life is not always fair, in many regards we both expect and demand at least some measure of fairness in our games. Even if our roleplaying games are designed to approximate reality in many regards, we don't really wish to preserve that unfair aspect of life - at least not to start out with while making our characters. Roleplaying games are no exception, so we strive for game balance. "So what's wrong with making game rules like that?" you ask in a slightly more demanding tone. Well, sometimes the game designers go about it in an awful way. It might be so bad that, if a character in the game were perceptive enough, he could see such laws or rules operating on his level, in his reality, and might, nay, should wonder about them. How would you react, by the way, if you found out you were a game piece on Earth and not a free willed individual? Leaving those aside who actually already believe this, most would have a hard time dealing with it. I know I would, or so my player makes me believe this would be the case;-) "Huh? Could you give me some examples of what you mean?" you inquire while clearly ignoring my attempts at humor. Sure. Suppose a rule were introduced that prevented one who took "RICH" as an advantage from giving money or equipment to one who took "POOR" as a disadvantage? The game system, G.U.R.P.S. (Generic Universal Role Playing System) actually does this, if I recall correctly. Jonalut says he's going to give money and armor to his poor friend so they are both strong and ready to meet the world. "You can't do that," says the GM. "Why not?" Jonalut's player asks. "Um, well, it's a rule. The book says so," stammers the GM, looking somewhat foolish he doesn't have a better answer. Obviously the creator of the game didn't want anyone to abuse the rules of advantages and disadvantages and wanted to prevent any player from pulling an end run around them. But how does this work on the IC (In Character) level? Jonalut wants to do it, it makes sense to do it, and they'd probably be fools not to do it. What law of the universe prevents it? Clearly, this is a gross example of what I call the GAMER'S FOOTPRINT. When a character can see the gamer's footprint, it is because something about the rules of the game has revealed itself on the IC level, and this might lead a character to believe something "funny" was going on. The gamer or the game has been revealed to the character. This is a tragic thing and must be avoided in roleplaying games unless we wish our characters to act as if they know they are game pieces and act as if they know they are directly controlled and manipulated by "players" or the gods above, or however they explain it "You wouldn't put a tiger behind that door since that would certainly kill me without a fair chance, and that wouldn't be fun, so I'll go through," says the player to the GM, grinning widely. This is an example of a character acting as if they know they are in a game, and it's bad roleplaying. Even if the player doesn't explain this line of reasoning openly to the GM, but still uses it, it's bad roleplaying. "I'll take the long sword since that does 1d8 damage and the rapier only does 1d6 according to this table in the rule book." That's another fine example of bad roleplaying. Yet both of these examples are NOT good examples of revealing the gamer's footprint. Next we have a good example of the gamer's footprint. "Your fighter, Jonalut, comes into the room and finds his friend, Bartex, is dead. There's a knife sticking out of Bartex's back. Standing above the body is the cleric of Set, Hortin, and that rogue, Valis. Both accuse each other of murder. What does Jonalut do?" inquires the GM. "I'll attack the thief for killing my friend," says Jonalut's player upon finding a knife in his poor friend's back. "Why not attack the cleric of Set? He might have been the one who killed Bartex. Either character could have done it," asks the GM. "He's a cleric; they can't use edged weapons," explains the player, confident in his analysis of the situation. Of course, this is a rather involved AD&D example. The rule, "Clerics can't use edged weapons," was placed in the game to prevent clerics from being as powerful as fighters and being able to cast spells as well, thus making fighters less than desirable to play in comparison to clerics - at least while low in level. Clearly, Jonalut's player used knowledge of a game rule to decide whom to attack. It may or may not be the case that clerics can use edged weapons on this world. Perhaps for sacrifices if not melee, it might be allowed, or some other thing could be going on. Even if this is a game rule, and even if it holds true on this world, would Jonalut know this? Now back up. Let's assume the cleric needed Bartex to die but only had a dagger, and this weapon restriction was a rule. "I'll stab Bartex in the back," says Hortin's player. "But you only have a dagger and can't use edged weapons," says the GM. Hortin's player looks puzzled. "Why?" he asks. And now the GM has to try to find a "good" IC reason for that one. The official line of BS didn't fly on my world. Maybe it did on yours. Or if you didn't like the official reason, maybe you made up a better one. For myself, I didn't feel game balance was in jeopardy and just got rid of that 'rule' or suggestion, opting instead to say that clerics most commonly used the weapon most often depicted with their deity - i.e. a hammer for Thor, a trident for Poseidon, a bow and arrow for Apollo, a sword for Frey, etc. - and if they were proficient with that, I also allowed them to become proficient with other weapons too, if they desired this, including edged weapons. "Do all rules made for game balance reveal the gamer's footprint like this?" you wonder out loud. "And what do you mean 'rule' or suggestion?" you also ask. Besides, not all game balance rules so readily reveal the gamer's footprint. Magic Users not being able to wear armor, for example, is such a rule. If they could wear armor too, they would be too powerful compared to warriors or priests or rogues. Not being able to wear armor is one of the disadvantages a mage has to balance the game and the player's choices between different classes. The rule was clearly made for game balance. The rule certainly wasn't made because - in real life - actual magic has a problem with iron. "But wouldn't the Magic Users wonder WHY they can't wear armor?" you so keenly observe. Bingo, yes, you hit upon it. They would indeed wonder. In fact, you must invent an IC reason and hope to marry it to game reality such that the characters will find it and accept it as natural and plausible and free of any obvious inconsistencies. Of course there is still some debate about what that law should be, and it is usually left up to the GM to contrive some bit of reasoning to explain it, or to adopt one of the traditionally accepted lines of BS floating around. For example: Iron spoils spells, or armor is too restrictive to properly employ a spell's somatic components. However, there may be some chinks in those explanations. "How about a better explanation then?" you ask. OK, arcane magic generates amplifying fields of power, but ferrous materials moving through these fields sometimes causes these fields to collapse if certain threshold energies are achieved while the field interacts with this ferrous material. This disruptive factor is directly proportional to the mass of the total iron but inversely proportional to the cube of the distance between the generating magic field and the center of mass of the ferrous material, which is why it has to more or less surround the mage so the center of mass is near the point source generating the magic field. "Huh?" you intone. Well, iron sometimes spoils the casting of magic spells, but it has to be REAL close, like wearing a lot of it around you and mostly surrounding you - chainmail, platemail, maybe even studded leather if the studs are numerous enough, evenly dispersed, and close enough to your body. Or being trapped inside an iron maiden or a very small room with iron metal walls would prevent your mage's magic from working. But a handy metal brazier, a wrist band or bracers of iron, a dagger, or the iron sword hanging on your belt at your side, etc., are not in sufficient quantity or in close enough proximity to collapse the amplifying field of magic. "But isn't that pure BS and completely arbitrary anyway?" you observe. Yeah. The point is it is consistent with game reality, conceals the gamer's footprint, and maintains game balance. But the explanation, whatever it may be, may have natural and logical consequences that flow from it. And the GM should strive for consistency as well, so though arbitrary, this rule now becomes universal truth for this world and should remain so forever, and the logical consequences that may spring from this rule should be respected as well. And this is where it gets tricky. Since mages are NOT usually that physically strong - as having high stats in several areas other than intelligence is less probable - the rules on encumbrance alone usually are all that is needed to prevent mages from employing armor, but some mages are strong, too, and letting then use armor may seem unfair, so further restrictions may be invented. "So iron is disruptive to magic? But wouldn't that mean they could wear leather armor?" you point out with some insight. "Sure, but it is still restrictive enough such that this will add 1 segment to their casting time since it isn't as useful as the many pockets and folds a robe or cloak might afford a mage by holding handy material components," points out the GM. And if the GM wishes to imposes further costs, he may say, "They also have to 'buy' the ability to use armor with a weapon proficiency slot, but if he's willing to do that, ok." This line of reasoning prevents mages from employing heavy armors, though allows lighter ones if the mage accepts the fact they slow him down a bit, and he has to buy the proficiency, and carry the extra weight, etc. That's not so awful, as game balance goes, and it makes sense on the IC level. "But wait! Wouldn't that mean if my spell didn't have material components, or I already had them at the ready, that I wouldn't be penalized an extra segment on my casting time?" you correctly conclude. "Darn right," admits the GM. "What about bandoleers or a special belt to hold material components? Wouldn't that negate that casting time penalty?" you continue. "Indeed, and so for a little extra effort and expense, you can obtain these too and thus avoid that penalty," admits the GM. "Iron, eh. Hmmm. Say, how about bronze armor?" you confidently smile. "Well, bronze working for armor is a disused technology and is not common anymore. It is therefore rare and expensive. Bronze is also harder to work with than iron - it is not wrought like iron but is instead cast - a much harder and lengthier process. Only platemail or scalemail are realistically an option then. To help prevent cracking, it must also be thicker or its AC will be worse. Bronze is already denser than iron, and with the increased thickness, this makes the already expensive and harder to obtain and harder to repair bronze armor quite a bit heavier. Most mages are hardly strong enough to bear the weight of iron, let alone bronze. And mages are not well trained in very heavy armor, so they'll have to spend one weapon proficiency slot on armor to gain its full AC benefits and allow full normal movement in it as well - though they don't have to and can just accept the AC and further movement penalties aside from those already given to such armor if they wish. But if you put up with the rarity, the expense of making it, the high expense of keeping it in good repair - and not at any old blacksmith in the land, but only a few specialist in bronze working - and if your mage can carry all that weight under the normal encumbrance rules, etc. etc. etc., then this may be possible," explains the GM, thus allowing preexisting rules and their natural consequences take their toll. But truthfully, that solution is so much of a hassle to the mage that even if they are inordinately strong and rich enough to afford this option, and even if they do obtain the WP for armor, and even if they ALWAYS have access to a bronze smith, that's a long way to go to do something they can probably do better with other magic. And the GM may still limit it in other ways, however arbitrary, as long as they do not reveal the gamer's footprint. For example, bronze does not enchant as easily as iron, so if the mage also had dreams of making the bronze armor +1, +2, +3 etc., it may not be that easy. Usually there are good reasons why most mages follow other paths. The point of all this is, however, those logical consequences of one's IC justifications should follow and hold true. Hopefully, if the GM has well crafted their justifications, this will all work. If they haven't, it can cause problems. For example, if the GM says heavy armor is just disruptive of somatic components, there is no earthly reason why a mage couldn't wear heavy armor and cast spells that have no somatic components. Furthermore, if the somatic components are given in the spell write-up and they are simple, like pointing one's finger, OBVIOUSLY these somatic components will not be hindered, and the mage could cast THOSE spells too while in heavy armor. They should only be prohibited from casting spells with complex somatic components. At least, if your justification for why they can't wear heavy armor and cast spells is true. Therefore, if you do not like the logical consequences of your explanations or justifications, you have to contrive better ones, or ultimately, live with the consequences. That's why I like my iron being disruptive argument. "But why can magic be on an iron sword if iron is so disruptive?" you finally demand. "Well, enchanting the sword puts magic on the sword's reference frame, which makes both magical field, and the sword, fixed relative to one another, and in that reference frame, there is no relative movement to cause the magic to collapse. A mage moving around in armor will have the iron and field moving relative to each other and collapse it. Besides, iron disrupts the casting of magic and not the actual magic after the fact. You can't disrupt an existing spell just by moving iron around it. So the physics of magic will, of course, be seen to . . ." "All right, all right. Never mind already. Jeeze. Just tell me why an elven fighter/mage can wear armor and cast spells," you demand. "OK. In 1st edition, many said they could do just that since it was apparently assumed elven magic and human magic were different in some regards. Elven magic was less susceptible since spiritually based beings could mitigate the disruptive effects of iron. In 2nd edition, this isn't really true. In fact, other than some weird exceptions, like elven chainmail, mages of either race don't wear heavy armor," the GM finishes. So you see, rules made solely for game balance are NOT the problem. Only when such rules make no sense on the character level might they become problematic. Or, given some justification, no matter what the GM may contrive, only if the GM fails to live with the logical consequences of these explanations might inconsistencies arise. We wish to avoid these things in a good game. Now I have seen - and contrived - of some rather elaborate ways to reveal the gamer's footprint. It could even be said a character might determine fantastic improbabilities were occurring if all players were told to make their characters with exactly 80 total stat points, for hard as it is to go to these lengths, one might be able to quantify their stats on a similar scale the players are using - don't ask how the characters got hold of this scale, but it could conceivably happen - and find, to their amazement, all of them in their "group" - the PCs, coincidentally, though not NPCs for some odd reason - had exactly the same total as if the gods were toying with them and gathering very specific people for some reason - as unlikely as this sounds, it could be done, though some will argue it can't, but I digress. The truth is, the harder you look, the more likely it is you will find a way to uncover the gamer's footprint. I am not suggesting you go forth and try to do this. I am suggesting, however, that sometimes what bothers you - that glaring mysterious gamer's footprint in your character's path - may not be obvious to others, or even if it is, they may not care as much as you care about it. They may not even strive toward the roleplaying ideal. Go figure. However, since it is a sloppy way to make a game rule, I say when it becomes obvious and it is pointed out, the GM should take all measures possible to excise it from game reality. They can find a better IC explanation for a rule or judge the rule not really necessary for game balance and get rid of it or perhaps even find another solution. The fundamental difference between board games, computers game, etc., and ROLEPLAYING games, is that our characters can, do, and SHOULD question their own existence and their own reality, unlike most mindless game pieces in most other kinds of games. And when they can perceive an anomaly in their world - the gamer's footprint - they would be remiss - roleplaying badly in this case - not to question that glaring example of godlike impositions upon their reality. Furthermore, I implore any that are making roleplaying game systems to try not to rely on such rules since they are cheap, sloppy patches and not indicative of good game design. If you really need a rule to adjust game balance, you SHOULD come up with the accompanying IC reason for it and not leave it up to the gamer to find it themselves, and it should be well crafted - i.e. consistent with the other rules in the game, and the logical consequences that flow from it should be acceptable. A current problem I'm having in this arena is with 3rd edition Though I will not use an actual example of 3rd edition Using experience point penalties to punish certain behavior - choices - or just to make adjustment to concerns of game balance is problematic. It suggests somehow that one's ability to learn is less than another's is. This is often not the case unless one is required to play their role as less intelligent, for example, or something similar to that. Most often, they are not, and one might wonder why they were always missing the point. Racial - and perhaps cultural - considerations also are a big problem. For example, let us look at the elf. A member of this race has fantastic longevity, better sight and hearing, greater resistance to certain detrimental magic, and other keen senses that give them quite a few advantages. This IS a game balance problem since one may say: "Hey, why play a human if I can play an elf and have all those elven advantages and do whatever a human can do as well?" A level limit was the fix in earlier additions, but that needed a clever IC line of BS to justify it. Fortunately, like the mage and armor issue, such justifications were devised and used. My particular take on that matter dealt with the differences between souls and spirits and the differences in different types of magic employed by each race. Because of that and how their levels and powers were tied to the gods - even for non-clerics - and how non-human worshiped deities had smaller followings and powers and couldn't disseminate the same power as human worshiped deities could, this all made pretty good sense on the IC level. But I won't go into this or explain it further here, particularly as it might take 3 or 4 more pages. If you're keen to see it, follow the link below: Level Limits (The Justification Of, And How 2e AD&D's Level Limits Might Work.) Level limits are now gone in 3rd edition "Oh, but that's a racial tendency and YOUR elf can be different," says a helpful soul. Fine, then THAT Elf doesn't get the experience point penalty, and you've failed to avoid the game balance problem you wished to fix in the first place. So 3rd edition The problem here is that this suggests if you play your demi-human as quick to master a skill, or with varied talents, or as versatile and capable, you are playing them incorrectly. Also, if some human is played as slow and not varied, or less than versatile and less than capable, they shouldn't get these advantages - yet they apparently do. I won't get too deeply into this here, but such reasoning is the epitome of RACISM - the assumption ALL members of one race have identical characteristics - which may be true when dealing with SOME physical characteristics or TRUE racial qualities based mostly on genetics - like infravision, darkvision, skin color, longevity, etc. - but are not necessarily true for issues that are more cultural - like how varied, versatile, or capable a character may be - or even by describing other cognitive traits already covered under the INT score. Just as RACISM is considered stupid and baseless with no supporting facts, so too would some of 3rd edition One suggestion to fix 3e on a roleplaying front would be to insist all human characters should be roleplayed as if their INT score was 2 higher than it really is - OR - all non-human characters should be roleplayed as if their INT score was 2 lower than it really is. This would account for it on a roleplaying front. Just as before, one is still required to roleplay their PC's INT properly - should it be significantly higher or lower than the player's own INT - but now under 3e, they seem to require one to do that AND play their racial cognitive traits properly too. Of course you could ignore all that, just as you could ignore your PC's INT score and play as intelligently or as stupidly as you wished, irrespective of the INT score, but you'd be roleplaying improperly if you did so. Thus, if your human PC isn't roleplayed as ambitious, versatile, capable, etc. you're roleplaying them incorrectly. Similarly, if your non-human PC has any of these traits, you are again roleplaying them incorrectly. Naturally, we must confine ourselves to characters of equal INT for such comparisons. For example, you'd only be wrong if your human character of INT X was less versatile, capable, ambitious, etc., compared to a non-human of equal INT, and vice versa. It's a roleplaying problem. I dislike this apparent attempt to foist roleplayable traits on our PCs above and beyond what the STAT scores already require, and I feel it is a wrong-headed path toward game balance justification in a role-playing game - though a perfectly good rule in a roll-playing game. The choice is yours. Most people don't like being forced to play inside these less than desirable stereotypes and would rather create their own role. Guidelines are OK, if reasonable, and TRUE racial qualities are fine as well, but try not to buy into RACISM as a justification for anything. Even 3e, on page 94 for customizing your character says: Race: "The rules for a character of a given race apply to most but not all people from that race." Nothing could be truer, and that is why most things are probably cultural traits and tendencies rather than racial, genetic ones. So one could avoid much of this if one insisted a member of a race growing up in another race's culture had the advantages and disadvantages of the adopted culture. On the other hand, if they did that, one could again pick an elf - and get the advantages of the true racial qualities, like infravision and longevity - and the advantages of the other culture - like more skills and quicker learning, or more frequent opportunities to learn a wider variety of skills, typical of that culture. Thus, you will again have failed to achieve game balance. A much better idea would have been to clearly separate cultural and racial factors and allow the players to pick both race as well as culture - assuming the GM allowed your dwarf, for example, to come from a non-dwarven culture, etc. They even "suggest" this in the 3e PHB as an option on page 94, but in my opinion that's backwards thinking for roleplayers and good roleplaying games or good roleplaying game design. It should have been better handled and more clearly detailed to begin with rather than left as a vague option many pages after the sections dealing with race and culture. If you'd like to see how I handled this problem, please follow the link below: Mixing Race And Culture (Details On What Happens When Your PC's Race And Culture Do Not Necessarily Match.) The realism and detail where roleplaying issues are concerned should be the default, and ignoring it should be the option if you don't care for that level of detail. In non-roleplaying issues, like combat, realism may be lessened since this is not a combat game, but a roleplaying game. However, if the 3rd edition just went so far as to explicitly state what would happen for these cross cultural characters and spelled out in detail what the pros and cons of this were, that would have been better and more acceptable. Yet they didn't do this. Why? They foolishly balanced the game problems of race using cultural things and almost tried to hide the fact your PC may come from a different culture. Or they did it by ignoring their own definition of INT and using other factors on top of that to reflect cognitive abilities, which would be fine if they are roleplayed, but they aren't, nor is 3e suggesting you should. Great roll-playing, perhaps, but not great role-playing. "Why do you think that?" you ask. Well, if they made it clear you could be an elf and grow up in a human culture and thus get all the true elven racial abilities - though not the cultural ones - but get the human cultural abilities - like extra skills and feats and favored class, etc. etc., etc. - few inexperienced players wouldn't jump at the chance for a bit of mini maxing and power gaming, even if more experience players might shy away from a power gaming, mini-maxing style of play. Better to keep this idea as a vague roleplaying option, almost hidden on page 94, than to reveal the fact their game balancing rules were artificial and poorly contrived. They sure didn't put it in with the rest of the section on race and culture, but much later, didn't they? Yet one could have fixed this, if they really cared. "Now why do you think that they don't care?" you ask again. Because they aren't following the logical consequences of their own justifications. Versatility is NOT just a human cultural trait since we know even humans of equal intelligence (IQs) are not always equally versatile. And some non-humans can be versatile. So like page 94 suggests, it shouldn't be true of ALL members of that race, just some. Yet they gave bonuses due to versatility to ALL humans, no matter how the individual is, and denied the bonus to ALL non-humans, no matter how versatile that individual may be. And there are better ways to do this without stooping to racism. Allowing all humans to have +2 to their intelligence (18 maximum) will do much to fix this, but then they no longer have the extra +1 skill/level due to versatility. This bonus will probably give humans, as a race and culture, all the advantages they need. And higher intelligence will translate to more skills through the normal skill rules anyway. Also, any advantages this may give human spell casters may help make up for the absence of level limits, and partially serve as a balancing factor in that regard once again. And finally, since all of these particular cognitive abilities are subsumed under one stat - INT - we need only roleplay that properly - one factor to consider rather than two. "Huh? Isn't that the very racism you were talking about before? I mean, aren't all humans smarter than all non-humans now?" you ask somewhat indignantly. Not at all. This is a true tendency and doesn't hammer down anything specific about an individual, like your PC for example. So before you had to roleplay your elf like they were slower to learn than a human of equal INT to justify not getting extra skills or taking that xp penalty. This applied to ALL elves, and that's what's racist. Now, it is based on intelligence. So you can have humans with any intelligence from 5 to 18 - naturally - and any elf with an intelligence from 3 to 18 - naturally. So some elves, for example, could learn quicker than your PC human, and no one is forced to roleplay like they are brighter or quicker - or dimmer or slower - than an individual of equal intelligence of another race because of racial factors, and we just let the intelligence statistic do its work naturally under the normal rules, and expected to keep in mind one stat that measures cognitive abilities and roleplay that stat properly. This is much simpler. And this is not a horrible solution since they already use racial adjustments to stats like this. Though dwarves get +2 to their constitution and humans don't, that doesn't mean ALL humans have weaker constitutions than ALL dwarves. Nor would this solution mean ALL humans are more intelligent than ALL non-humans, but 3e's justifications for these racial advantages do imply this on some level, and that's racists thinking. Ah, so you don't object to the bonus, but only the particular reason 3e gives for its justification? Exactly. Find a better IC reason and it may yet work to cover the gamer's footprint. I just don't see one yet, given the way they did it. And when they do this, is game balance really achieved anyway? Well, possibly for PCs, but not for NPCs. A 20% penalty for a race that lives a lot longer than 20% longer than humans will logically produce many, many high level non-human adventurers. So again, game balance is not just a snap shot of what happens to our PCs, but should balance more worldly concerns as well and take into account what's happening with the NPCs too. "I'm not sure I follow you. What do you mean about elves having more high level characters?" you wonder. Humans and Elves live, on average, 91 and 552 years, respectively. Elves live 6 times longer than humans do in this edition. Assume the first century of an elf is essentially wasted, so they have 5 more human life times as adults. Even at a 20% xp penalty, they are virtually the same in a single human lifetime. Maybe the elves would even be higher since they won't be hampered by middle and old age factors in this human's lifetime. So if a human becomes high level, their elf counterpart is virtually just a high if not higher, since they didn't slow down due to old age, toward the end of one human lifetime. Then the human dies of old age. The elf is already very high level and has 4 more human lifetimes to become ridiculously higher, if they want. And this didn't just start for your PCs, but has been true for millennia on your game world - probably. Without level limits, the NPC big picture means than 4/6ths or 2/3rds of the adventuring elven population will be more powerful than any human, perhaps even staggeringly so. Now while I don't dispute clever GMs can contrive of reasons why this might not happen, these reasons are not represented in the core rules, and 3e messed up again by not doing something about it. Furthermore, most reasons I have heard suggested by other GMs often seem illogical to me and inconsistent with other game factors. Make no mistake, for 3rd edition So, I have some doubts about 3rd edition NOTE: Please remember, the above examples are NOT necessarily an accurate depiction of 3rd edition since, as of this writing, I'm still learning it, so don't write telling me they are bad examples; they were just quick, abstract examples of bad ways to achieve game balance since they reveal the gamer's footprint. There may be something in 3rd edition Just bear in mind, though, that the game itself defines INTELLIGENCE as the ability to learn, memorize, reason, and recall things. The entire system is set up to let INT handle learning. If you wish a race to have higher or lower INT, that's fine. Go ahead. That isn't racist. That's a game fact. Such distinctions would be demonstrably true in that world. For example, orcs - in general - are less intelligent than humans are - in general. But if two races are in the same INT range - as are most PCs - then INT, by definition, tells the tale, and making learning - if that's what xp is - and skill acquisition based on something other than INT - all other factors being equal - violates their own rules about what INT measures. Thus, an elf with an INT of 15 should learn just as quickly as a human with an INT of 15, assuming similar class, experience, teachers, etc. It may be harder for an elf to get a 15 INT than a human - since humans may be +2 to INT in my proposed changed - but the stats tell the tale once we get there. Not some vague, poorly defined, racist reasoning that applies to ALL members of a race, without exception. That's just poor game design. Physical characteristics are one thing, but mental characteristics are another - and more clearly in the realm of where we ROLE play our PCs rather than ROLL play them - and issues dealing with INT, WIS, and CHA are not so easily tweaked without possibly revealing the gamer's footprint by forcing one to roleplay them. Since they do not require us to play our individual PC humans as quick and versatile, nor do they require us to play our individual PC non-humans are slow, lazy, or less than ambitious, then it obviously isn't a demonstrable fact for ALL race members. Yet ascribing it to a race anyway just to get a bonus is racist since it isn't true. And if it's cultural and not racial, fine, but then anyone growing up in that culture will get these cultural traits - probably. This distinction isn't even all that subtle. It is the difference between ALL and SOME, or even ALL and MOST. They are not the same. And what's worse, even when they claim a non-human race has a particular affinity to certain class, they do not let them acquire those skills, or skills directly related to this aptitude, any faster than humans do. Or for that matter, they don't even acquire the class faster than another non-human race. For example, it takes an elf an average of 28 years longer to learn how to be a mage than a human or even a halforc - though both elf and human have the class as a favored class, and the halforc doesn't have mage as a favored class at all. So an elf should probably acquire and learn quicker any skills that are associated with magic, since mage is their favored class. But they don't. Despite their natural affinity for it, they still learn it more slowly than a human does, or most other races for that matter, even if they have identical intelligence scores. Why? That blanket rule about getting skills quicker, no matter what skill you may be discussing, no matter what your background. That is why. When comparing a human and non-human of equal intelligence, humans learn ALL skills faster without exception. It's silly. I admit I could very well be wrong about 3rd edition Email Jim Your Comments (Send Praise, Critique, Complaints, Suggestions, Ideas, or Submissions). But I digress. In any event, I think you may now have a better idea of what I mean by the Gamer's Footprint. Rules for game balance are fine in most non-roleplaying games since no one is trying to play a role. In most games, players do not often have a game piece that needs to question its world's reality. For example, how often does the "hat" question the wisdom of staying at "Boardwalk" with a hotel on it when he can scarcely afford to do so? Never. But roleplaying games are more than ordinary games; they are roleplaying endeavors as well. Roleplaying game rules should, therefore, be designed to be BOTH well balanced AND make sense from the character's perspective. This is not always easy to do, but that is not a sufficient excuse for not trying, in my honest opinion. To that end, in many ways most rules should be universal properties; the rules should apply equally to PCs and NPCs alike. For example, if a PC human male warrior must live under some rule dealing with their race/gender/class, the same rule should apply to NPC human male warriors as well. Furthermore, the rule, as a universal property, should extend out as far as possible so as many characters - PCs, NPCs, human or otherwise - are covered under the rule's umbrella. Thus, such a rule for human male warriors probably should have some truth for all humans, OR all males, OR all warriors. If this isn't the case, then one must devise a good IC reason why it isn't the case. Failing that, you might be revealing the gamer's footprint, and that's bad. Well, in a good roleplaying game, it's considered bad, anyway. Of course, if the authors of the game system didn't include these IC justifications, the GM may still make the attempt. They may even prefer the freedom to do this, unfettered by some of the author's - um, shall we say - ridiculous, ill-contrived suggestions. So you see, it is not that IC justifications cannot be made, found, invented, borrowed, etc. for they clearly can, and some of them are quite clever. It might just be helpful if the authors made explicit note of certain game balancing rules, informing the GM he or she may have to justify such a rule or perhaps omit it. But authors pointing out flaws in their own work isn't likely to happen - even assuming they are aware of them, for they probably aren't. If they were, they probably would have fixed it before publication. So a GM must be wary when dealing with game rules and thinking about altering them to custom fit such rules to their own world. Above all, they must realize their possible explanations and justifications probably will have logical consequences, and players may find and take advantage of these loopholes if the justifications aren't well crafted. But such skill with rule adjudication comes with GMing experience, so you just have to give it a try and keep on going. Hopefully, the GM will strive for consistency since this is a rather important aspect of game play. And you GMs can always ask your players for help, too. So, in closing, though I could go on and on about numerous examples of badly designed rules that might tip off the characters they were merely pieces in a game and being manipulated from above, that isn't the point of this article. I only meant to define the Gamer's Footprint and give you a better understanding of this problem as it relates to roleplaying games and their design. If I've succeeded at giving you a good idea of what the Gamer's Footprint is, perhaps you may have learned how to possibly deal with the problem when it rears its ugly head in your roleplaying games. I hope I have succeeded in this to such a degree that if someone speaks about "Revealing The Gamer's Footprint," at least you will know what they are talking about, if not also being able to add your own constructive thoughts on the matter. Happy Gaming ;-) © March of 2001 |